Archive for the ‘cortex’ tag

ROBOTC for VEX Robotics 4.53 preview is out and it sports a myriad of awesome new features that we’re very excited about! A full list of changes and improvements appear below, but here are the highlights:

Create Graphs from your Datalogs

Want to know what running your robot into a wall looks like to your accelerometer? Curious about how ambient light intensity varies throughout the day? Datalogging now supports (live) plotting of incoming data gathered on the robot brain. Science experiments involving sensor and motor data can be displayed. You can easily find out by gathering the data and having ROBOTC plot the data for you, as it comes in.

Datalogging is no longer restricted to just Full ROBOTC, we’ve added easy to use blocks that allow you to access the same functionality in a simple manner.

Additionally, logged data can even be exported for further analysis in a spreadsheet application of your choice.

ROBOTC Graphical Variable Support

You can now use variables in ROBOTC Graphical, as well as perform various operations on them. You can add, subtract, divide, multiple, whatever your program requires. You can use variables in loops, motor blocks, you name it!

ROBOTC Graphical Break and Continue

We’ve added two new program flow blocks, break and continue. This was a much requested feature from our more advanced users of ROBOTC Graphical. You can now create more complex programs without creating work-arounds or having to switch to ROBOTC Full.

Beta Channel Access

Want to have a front row seat when it comes to upcoming features in ROBOTC? Subscribe to the beta channel through ROBOTC’s preference menu and you will be notified when a preview build (such as this one), is released. Try out new and exciting features before we release them to the general public and provide us with feedback. Help make ROBOTC better!

Other changes and bug fixes

New features – VEX

You can control an LED on the VEX EDR from Graphical and Natural Language using the new setLED block or command.

Changes and Improvements – General

The default colors in the Assembly window (F9) have new defaults for increased readability.

Function tooltips have been revised and corrected where applicable.

License error messages have been improved. A short explanation of the error codes is now provided.

#info has been added to the list of support #pragma statements, such as #error and #warn

The start and stop buttons on the datalogging control have been merged into a single button.

Deleting a file from the File Utility was not possible, this has been fixed.

We’ve made some visual changes to ROBOTC Graphical including new colours for enhanced readability.

Internal improvements to the datalogging system have been made that resolve possible data corruption and inability to disable polling for a specific data series.

Saving a New User Model in the Motors and Sensor Setup has been fixed.

Various float conversion related issues have been fixed.

NaN (Not a Number) detection has been fixed.

Sscanf with more than 7 arguments could crash the VM, this has been fixed.

Overloaded deprecated function no longer cause warnings.

A discrepancy between the compiler and VM regarding the maximum number of tasks has been fixed.

An issue with ROBOTC crashing due to a recursive macro has been addressed.

The RVW package manager now shows the correct informational icon.

Opening the RVW package manager no longer causes an exception under certain circumstances.

An issue with the debugStream window background refresh causing a hang when communications with the robot was lost, has been remedied.

The Program Debug window no longer crops the status line.

You can now use displayInverseString() in combination with a char *.

drawInvertRect and drawInvertEllipse were not deprecated correctly, this has been fixed.

Changes and Improvements – VEX

The VexIQ LCD screen has been added to the #debuggerWindows #pragma.

A bug in the macro parser prevented the use of the VEX EDR platform when a PLTW license was active. This has been fixed.

An issue with debugging and using sscanf on the VEX IQ has been addressed.

VEX IQ getGyroRate and getGyroRateFloat return incorrect values, this has been fixed.

Starting a new task on the VEX EDR no longer clears the screen.

Using drawTextCenteredInUserScreenArea function will no longer throw an exception on the VEX IQ.

An issue with the start of flash file system not showing correctly in communication debug message has been fixed.

The competition kicked off a few months ago, and we have NEW HIGH SCORES to share with you …

As some of you may know, we along with VEX Robotics and the REC Foundationhave an exciting competition going on right now with the VEX and VEX IQ Programming Skills Challenges for Robot Virtual Worlds. This competition offers a low cost, high quality virtual competitions that enable students to test their problem solving and programming skills in the VEX Nothing But Net and VEX IQ Bank Shot Robot Virtual World Competitions. And, not only do these virtual competitions provide a great learning experience, the winner of each competition will receive an invitation to the VEX World Championship — April 20-23, 2016 at the Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville, Kentucky!

You still have one more week to compete and try to beat these high scores for a chance to qualify for VEX Worlds! Think you can do it? Learn more here robotc.net/recfand visit www.cs2n.org/competitions to sign up!

Important Deadlines:

Submissions for both contests are due by March 1, 2016.

Winners will be announced on March 11, 2016!

And remember, you must submit both your score and code through CS2N.org to officially register for the competition.

As some of you may know, we along with VEX Robotics and the REC Foundationhave an exciting competition going on right now with the VEX and VEX IQ Programming Skills Challenges for Robot Virtual Worlds. This competition offers a low cost, high quality virtual competitions that enable students to test their problem solving and programming skills in the VEX Nothing But Net and VEX IQ Bank Shot Robot Virtual World Competitions. And, not only do these virtual competitions provide a great learning experience, the winner of each competition will receive an invitation to the VEX World Championship — April 20-23, 2016 at the Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville, Kentucky!

The competition kicked off a few months ago, and it is time to share our latest high scores …

You still have one more month to compete and try to beat these high scores for a chance to qualify for VEX Worlds! Think you can do it? Learn more here robotc.net/recfand visit www.cs2n.org/competitions to sign up!

Important Deadlines:

Submissions for both contests are due by March 1, 2016.

Winners will be announced on March 11, 2016!

And remember, you must submit both your score and code through CS2N.org to officially register for the competition.

We are so excited to share the latest web design update for our VEX CORTEX Video Trainer! This includes all of our previous videos and materials, but in an easy to follow new format.

The VEX CORTEX Video Trainer is a multimedia curriculum that features lessons for the VEX CORTEX Microcontroller, which can also be applied to the older VEX PIC Microcontroller 0.5. It includes in-depth programming lessons for ROBOTC, multi-faceted engineering challenges, step-by-step videos, robotic support material, educational resources, and more! Check it out today and let us know what you think!

The ROBOTC Development Team is excited to announce not one, not two, but three updates this week! Yes, earlier in the week we announced our 4.29 update, but we’ve taken care of a few more bugs along with a 3.65 update. These updates are for the VEX Robotics (CORTEX and VEX IQ) robotics systems and includes new features, functionality and a load of bug fixes. You can download them here! Read more below …

The ROBOTC Development Team is very excited to announce our latest update, ROBOTC 4.29. This update is for the VEX Robotics (CORTEX and VEX IQ) robotics systems and includes new features, functionality and a load of bug fixes.

What we’re most excited about in this new release is the official version of the brand new “Natural Language 2.0″ libraries for the VEX Cortex, including support for the new ROBOTC Graphical interface with VEX Cortex.

The new Natural Language 2.0 for Cortex allows users to customize and use their own robot configurations with our new Graphical Interface.

In addition, users can also program their VEX Cortex Competition Robots using our new “Graphical Competition Template”! Teams can now get a competition program up and running in less than 20 lines of code!

We’ll have more videos and tutorials on using the VEX Cortex Graphical Language mode in the near future, but try out the new software today and let us know what you think!

Download the “VEXnet Key 2.0 Firmware Upgrade Utility” and insert your VEXnet 2.0 key to any free USB port on your computer. Follow the instructions on the utility to update each key individually. All VEXnet 2.0 keys must be running the same version in order to function properly.

After updating your VEXnet 2.0 keys, you will need to update your VEX Cortex and VEX Game Controllers with Master Firmware Version 4.23 from inside of ROBOTC.

After updating the master firmware, users will also have to update the VEX Cortex with the latest ROBOTC firmware as well.

(ALL) Debug stream fixed so that “Clear Debug Stream” clears the IDE’s Window at the proper location; previously it was possibly erasing the screen at a spot well after the actual “clear” function was called.

The ROBOTC Development Team is very excited to announce our latest release update, ROBOTC 4.27! This update is for the both the VEX Robotics (CORTEX and IQ) and LEGO MINDSTORMS (NXT and EV3) robotics systems and includes new features, functionality and a load of bug fixes! Download the latest update and take a look at the setup information below.

Download the “VEXnet Key 2.0 Firmware Upgrade Utility” and insert your VEXnet 2.0 key to any free USB port on your computer. Follow the instructions on the utility to update each key individually. All VEXnet 2.0 keys must be running the same version in order to function properly.

After updating your VEXnet 2.0 keys, you will need to update your VEX Cortex and VEX Game Controllers with Master Firmware Version 4.23 from inside of ROBOTC.

After updating the master firmware, users will also have to update the VEX Cortex with the latest ROBOTC firmware as well.

LEGO NXT Users:

Simply update to the latest ROBOTC firmware from inside of ROBOTC.

LEGO EV3 Users:

All users will need to update the LEGO EV3′s Kernel by connecting the EV3 and selecting “Robot Menu -> Download EV3 Linux Kernel” from inside of ROBOTC. The version number is the same to keep alignment with the EV3 Programming Software and LEGO’s releases, but the Kernel has bug fixes to increase sensor reliability.

After updating your EV3′S Linux Kernel, you’ll also need to update the ROBOTC firmware from inside of ROBOTC.

Fixed a bug where the joystick station would not appear / crash ROBOTC when using IQ or Cortex platforms.

Fixed accidental bug where motorPWM was disabled for the NXT platform.

Fixed a bug where Virtual Worlds/Emulator VEX IQ was not displaying the correct values in the debugger for the specific color sensor mode.

Remove some unneeded color enums from EV3 native bytecodes libraries.

Improved support for use of “enum” and “struct” keywords. Previously declarations were of the format ” “; now they can also be of form “struct “. Similarly for “enum” keyword. ROBOTC compiler is a blend of C and C++ syntax for “enum” and “struct” recognition.